This is my first public post on this forum, and what better way to do it than to present my most successful project thus far?

Introducing the Thugger version 3.0. For those who are unfamiliar with this guy, he is a tiny figurine that transforms into a 'cyber-cassette' small enough to fit into the chest cavity of the deluxe War for Cybertron Soundwave figure. To Transformers fans out there, apologies for the introdump.

These pictures show my latest version of the Thugger, which is basically composed of a mixture of WSFP and FUD material. This was done to maximise reliability of the joints, while preserving surface detail in the areas that count. Currently only Rumble (the red one) had a snapped FUD neck joint, which I replaced with a spare WSF piece.

The paint job was executed with a mix of lacquer and enamel modelling paints. The eyes were a real B- to paint; I had to go at them with a toothpick...

The motivation for this project started as a challenge to myself to design a toy figure with the smallest joints possible yet with a certain level of reliability. With the techniques picked up in this project, I can move onto even larger, complex projects.

Second, this is a test to see how much detail I can put into a model before it became ridiculous at that scale. The Thuggers were designed when Detail material was the norm. Since FUD came out we have seen some really amazing stuff from other artists, and even now I felt the Thugger can do with even more detail.